Cody’s Challenge is, by its nature, not a race for all-comers.
Saturday’s course in the sixth edition of the race started at the top of the gondola at Steamboat Ski Area and went up, featuring 4,500 feet of climbing.
There’s something about the event that makes people want to give it a go, however, and no one on Saturday signified that better than Josh Westfall.
The course is made for Alpine touring ski gear. It’s equally do-able on Telemark equipment, of course. A handful of racers gave it a go with split snowboards and a few with regular snowboards.
Only Westfall made his assault with a ski bike.
“It was tough,” he admitted after two hours of pushing his ski bike up slopes, then ripping down them with it, “but not as tough as people think.”
On Saturday, that magnetic draw of Cody’s Challenge that pushes athletes to try something perhaps a little over their head was in full effect, and it pushed the event to have a banner year. Cody’s Challenge doubled last year’s participation.
Corinne St. John, sister to the event’s namesake, Cody St. John, had set 100 racers as a target for this year, and 125 as a comfortable place in the future.
It represented some ambition for a race that’s hovered around 75 participants since it debuted in 2008, a year after Cody St. John, a Steamboat ski patroller, died from complications from a car accident.
Nearly 160 turned out Saturday.
“It’s amazing,” Corinne said. “This is a perfect representation of who Cody was. He was loved by everyone and even the people who never knew him can get a sense of who he was.”
As always, celebrating ski patrollers was central to the event, and the added numbers can only help. Five patrollers from across the region were awarded scholarships to help them pursue medical training — something Cody was doing at the time of his accident — and Steamboat Ski Patrol was awarded another $2,000 to allow for specialized training and equipment.
Even some of the award money reflected that cause. Teams from various ski patrol units throughout the area competed. Steamboat won, taking “Cody’s Cup” and another check to help the patrol.
The day’s fastest man was a ski patroller, racer Max Taam, who works for Aspen Mountain when he’s not traveling the globe competing in randonee races. He won the event for the third time in four years, finishing in 1 hour, 30 minutes and 49 seconds.
Ben Kadlec was second in 1:38:07, and Duke Barlow was third at 1:38:29.
“I love supporting the cause and it’s a fun course,” Taam said. “It’s a net downhill course, which I love. We are all skiers. This is always one race I don’t want to miss.”
Sari Anderson, the women’s winner, also came in with a sterling pedigree in the mountaineering world — she’s among the best in the sport, and a world-class cyclist to boot. She left with praise similar to Taam’s.
“It was a great course. The snow was amazing and the whole organization was great,” she said. “I’d love to be back. It’s such a fun time of year to race.”
She won with a time of 1:43:31. Kate Zander was second in 1:46:15, and Steamboat’s Amy Lawton was third in 1:49:09.
Ben Strook won the men's short course, finishing in 1:48:10. Bridger Carlton was second among the men and Will Carlton was third.
Kim Temples was second overall and first among the women in 1:50:41. Elisabeth Boersma was second and Erin Nemec was third.
Indeed, an affiliation with the COSMIC mountaineering series helped bring some of the region’s biggest mountaineering to compete at Cody’s Challenge, but the tone of the race was set just as much by the legions of race first timers.
These weren’t your Average Joes, right from the couch, of course. The course started at the top of the gondola, included multiple long climbing sections and a dip out of the ski area boundary and into Fish Creek Canyon. Even the rookies, like many of the 50 racers from Manic Training that filled the course, were fit athletes and experienced skiers. But they were new to randonee.
Certainly it was the first time Westfall had raced such an event with his ski bike.
He’s driving to get his ski bike rental operation, Steamboat Skibikes, off the ground and was intent on showing what they could do. The uphill, he said, was the worst. He pushed the bike through those sections and admitted he lost time.
“I didn’t have to strap in, though,” he said. “I made up time there and going downhill.”
Like many of the day’s racers, he didn’t threaten to win. He was there to prove something, and when he finished, he did.